Microsoft: Family Sharing On Xbox One Is 'On The Roadmap'

Last summer, when the Internet was railing against Microsoft's controversial Xbox One DRM policies and the tech giant was scrambling to salvage a badly damaged Xbox brand, one feature alone was almost universally praised by the press and gamers alike. Family Sharing was the concept that you could let a small group of friends and family share your digital games library -- while you couldn't just give the disc to whoever you wanted, there would be a more fluid system for sharing with those close to you. When Microsoft walked back on the rest of those always-online policies, family sharing went with it and the gamers mourned.

Apparently, integrating that feature back into the Xbox One is still a priority for Xbox head Phil Spencer. He was fairly straightforward in an interview with Gamertag radio recently, and while he didn't provide a timeframe for bringing back sharing, it certainly seems like a distinct possibility:

Xbox One Controller (Photo credit: mastermaq)

"We looked at the digital features that we had talked about last year and as a gamer, there were a lot of those features that I think really resonated and were smart features for people who really have a lot of games and maybe play on a couple consoles or have bunch of people in the house or want to share with friends," Spencer said. "As I look at our monthly update roadmap, those kind of features are in our roadmap. There is a little bit of a challenge now that you've got DRM on a disc."

One assumes that family sharing was simply lost it what must have been a fairly intense period of scrambling up in Redmond -- some of the core features of the new console had to be rewritten, and the company essentially had to start from scratch. Shortly after, Marc Whitten said that they would consider bringing family sharing back if it seemed like gamers wanted it.

That gamers want these features is clear. There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense from a conceptual point of view as we move into an increasingly digital era, but it mostly boils down to getting games without paying for them, something any consumer can get behind. I wouldn't expect this to come back anytime soon -- if it had a definite place on this "roadmap," Spencer probably would have told us -- but expect much rejoicing when it finally returns.

As an added bonus, if Microsoft announced family sharing, Sony would likely have to follow suit, and gamers would win all around.